Wiley to build ‘country’s largest’ charity kitchen

Believed to be the country’s largest kitchen of its kind, the facility is being delivered by Wiley, which is providing its services at cost.

The production kitchen will be opened in October 2018, with the aim of cooking 1.25 million meals in the first year of operation.

Wiley has been onsite with FareShare since the end of May and has been working closely with the charity since late last year.

The kitchen will have the capacity to cook five million meals a year.

FareShare rescues food that would otherwise go to waste and cooks it into free, nutritious meals for people in crisis.

FareShare is duplicating its capacity to cook rescued food at scale from Melbourne to Queensland, where surplus food is available and community needs are acute.

Wiley project manager Lauren Ellis said many suppliers have chipped in to offer services at a greatly discounted rate.

The kitchen will be powered by local volunteers and supplied with quality ingredients by Foodbank Queensland, which will also distribute the nutritious cooked meals through its existing network of charities.

FareShare is now welcoming registrations from would-be volunteers.